


I Hate You

by lilyevcans



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Soulmate AU, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 20:05:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9841856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyevcans/pseuds/lilyevcans
Summary: Lily should be happy. The words written on her wrist tell her she has a soulmate. But what's written isn't exactly conventional. Does she even want to meet him?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea from one of many soulmate AUs on Tumblr. I wrote this in one night, so it's kind of crazy, but I still hope you enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: These characters all belong to J.K. Rowling, not me.

She knows better than to chase after James.

Lily Evans knows better than to listen to her heart, to let it rule her, before she can be sure she won’t get hurt, before she can assess the risks.

But James Potter is a risk taker. And that’s the thing about risk takers. They usually cause everyone around them to take risks, too.

* * *

 

The words have been on Lily since birth. Thick, black letters, printed on the base of her wrist like a tattoo.

It’s not like it’s uncommon. Most kids have them, a reminder permanently pressed on to them, reassuring them that they have a soulmate.

Tuney has words on her wrist too, and when they were younger, they would try to read them, sounding out the letters and giggling at how they felt on their tongues.

Lily’s mum and dad sit them down at seven and explain.

“These words are what your soulmate will say to you one day,” her mum says, and then lets her children barricade her with questions.

“Mummy, how will we know?” Petunia asks, always the analyzer.

“When they say it, you’ll feel it fade away. Almost like magic”

She smiles, puts a hand on both of their wrists. “And then you’ll know for sure who was made for you.”

Around second grade is when the children can read their wrists all the way through, and every teacher knows that a period will come when they’ll all sit sit at recess and read them to each other, trying to see if a first crush is their soulmate.

Petunia joins in. “You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever met,” she reads, semi-knowingly flipping her blonde hair and fluttering her eyelashes. A few girls clap.

“It’s like a movie,” a girl named Jane says, a blush coming into her cheeks.

Then she turns. “What’s your’s say, Lily?”

Lily blushes as well, but for a very different reason. “It’s a bit silly, isn’t it?” She says, backing away slowly from the group. “Meeting our soulmates will be years away.”

But second grade girls are relentless in their quest for the truth, and good gossip. Jane grabs her wrist and reads it out loud.

“I hate you.”

“Oh,” says Jane, and the word echoes among the girls. “Well, that’s—not very nice, I suppose.”

And those same second grade teachers are always prepared for the end of those sessions, as the nice, normal girls skip off, done worrying about it for a few years, at least, and the now-misfits, the ones with no words or awful words come running to them.

But Lily Evans doesn’t cry at school, so she lifts her chin up, pats her eyes dry when no one’s watching, and runs off to play with Petunia and the other girls.

Then, when she gets home and is in the safety of her room, she cries. And cries. And cries for hours, the kind of horrible crying where you have to be quiet because you don’t want anyone to hear you, the kind of crying that ends with hiccupping and headaches. Then she grabs her old teddy bear and crawls into bed, and promises herself she won’t ever let it bother her again.

At least she has a soulmate, she says to her parents, to her friends, to anyone who will listen, reassuring them and herself.

When she gets her Hogwarts letter at eleven, it’s easier to believe, because there’s already magic printed on her wrist.

At Hogwarts, Lily learns that some people don’t care what their wrists say.

“It’ll happen the way it’s supposed to, Lily,” her friend Marlene says.

Marlene has nothing written on her, and sometimes Lily asks herself if that’s why she’s such good friends with her. It’s a trend, really. She’s made friends with all the people who don’t care about finding a soulmate. Marlene, with no soulmate, Dorcas and Mary, who both tell her not to waste time worrying about what’s on her wrists, and Remus, who has, “You can’t just run away from your problems,” splattered on his wrist. They’re a good group, who focus on other things, don’t get caught up in the drama of dating.

And then James Potter comes along.

He was always there, an annoying presence who Lily thought was too arrogant to bother with. And she was right, for the first six years.

And then, as most boys tend to do during their teenage years, he changed. He no longer got into petty fights with Slytherins in the hallways or winked at her, and his friends stopped acting as pervy. (As. Sirius Black is still a nasty piece of work.)

He’s still around all the time, but Lily finds that she wants him to be. James sits next to her at breakfast, and rather than slapping his hands away, she passes him toast. He brings her a drink at a party, and instead of pouring it on him, she takes it and starts up a conversation with him. Lily recommends books to him, and James helps her with her transfiguration homework.

Lily calls it a good friendship. Her friends call it flirting.

On Valentine’s Day that year, Lily is eating porridge at the breakfast table when James’ sleek Snowy Owl swoops down and drops a carnation next to her bowl.

Marlene squeals and grabs her arm. “Oh, Lily, he likes you!”

Lily stares at her friend’s flushed cheeks and takes another bite. “We’re just friends.”

Dorcas clucks her tongue at Lily in her matronly way. “Lily, boys don’t typically send their friends flowers on Valentine’s Day.”

“What happened to, ‘Don’t bother with dating. It’ll happen the way it’s supposed to happen.’?”

“You know what we mean. Don’t bother with dating just to find your soulmate, not stop dating altogether.” Dorcas wags her finger, and Lily is once again reminded of her mother.

“You know, based on what my wrist says, I’m not even sure I want to meet my soulmate.” Lily says, trying to add an air of finality as she gets up from the table and slings her bag over her shoulder.

But of course it’s not over. Lily sees Marlene whispering to Remus in the hallway the next day. She can’t hear what they’re saying, but she does see Remus’ mouth light up in a stupid smile.

Remus walks up to her after class that day, when most of their friends are loafing around outside or doing homework in the library.

“I’ll kill Marlene,” Lily whispers as she tries to pack her things up before Remus can reach her, but she’s too late. He grins and waves at her like he’s not some traitor.

“Hey, Lils, can you help me with something?”

She squints her eyes, but offers him a seat next to her. “What’s up, Remus?”

His face goes red and she takes one of his hands. “Seriously, what can I help you with?”

“Well, let’s say hypothetically, I have a friend.”

“You have a hypothetical friend. Check.”

“And I have another friend, also hypothetical, who hypothetically has a hypothetical crush on the first hypothetical friend. And he hypothetically won’t stop talking about said hypothetical friend.”

Lily rolls her eyes so high she hopes God will see and take pity on her. “Did Marlene put you up to this?”

“Hypothetically?”

She rolls her eyes again and slaps his hand, and he chuckles. “Nah, James has been trying to get me to talk to you for months. He’ll send me to talk, then chicken out at the last minute.”

“James Potter, a coward?” Lily throws her head back and laughs so loud that people turn to look at her.

Remus joins her laughter. “He even wrote a few scripts.”

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” she says, trying her hardest to look cool as swaggers up to her room. 

* * *

That’s when the problem starts. Lily likes James. She really, really likes him. Everytime she thinks of them going to Hogsmeade together or holding his hand, getting to walk around knowing he likes her as much as she likes him, her stomach warms like she’s just downed twenty cups of firewhiskey.

But there’s no way James can be her soulmate. He was an idiot sometimes, but he was never cruel. He would never say he hated her. And she can’t start a relationship fully knowing it won’t last.

No one else is in the dormitory, so she screams. She throws her textbooks down and kicks her pillow. She falls onto her bed and sobs and bangs on her mattress with her fists and carries on and on until she’s wrapped herself into one of the curtains of her four-poster, still crying.

“Oh god,” she whispers into her knees. She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry about soulmates again, much less a boy.

Then she gets an idea. It’s horrible, really, and if she wasn’t drunk off of love and screwing fate, she would have never done it. But she runs out of her dormitory, spelling her coat onto her as she rushes past it.

“Remus!”

He’s curled up on the couch reading, but he jumps up and throws his book down as she nearly rams into him.

“Lily, are you hurt?”

“No, I—I’m fine. Where’s James?” Her eyes are blazing, her adrenaline pumping through her veins.

“I don’t know, probably in the library. He’s got a paper due tomorrow. Why?”

“No reason!” She says, already dashing away and nearly jumping through the portrait hole.

The library is quieting down as dinner draws nearer, so it’s fairly easy to find James. He’s running his hand through his hair as he writes, then crosses out, then writes again.

He grins up at her as she sits down next to him and catches her breath.

“Hey, Evans! Couldn’t even spend an afternoon apart from me?”

“We need to talk,” she manages to huff out.

“Did you run all the way here?” He cocks his brows in that stupidly beautiful way he always does when he’s confused, and Lily can’t help but let out a sob and reach her arms out.

He pulls her into a hug, and she can smell his body wash. Overpowering and unnecessary, she usually tells him, but today she gladly breathes in the familiar scent of musk and the ocean.

“James, I really like you.”

“Just can’t get enough of me,” he quips, but a grin overtakes his face. “Call me stupid, but isn’t that a good thing? Why are you crying?”

“We can’t be together.” She isn’t crying anymore, but her eyes are puffy and red, and she’s impressed he can even look her in the eye.

“That’s ridiculous. Why not? Because you’re muggleborn? Let me tell you, that is the last thing I care about.”

“No.” She thrusts her wrist in front of him. “Look. ‘I hate you.’ That’s what my wrist says.” Her voice is starting to get shrill, but she continues.”Like you would ever say that! I’m doomed to be soulmates with someone who hates me!”

And then, James does the last thing Lily expects him to. He laughs. She starts to cry again, and he laughs even harder, pulling her into a hug and rubbing her back as she sobs into his shoulder.

“Evans, you actually believe that? You don’t have to marry your soulmate, love. You may not ever even find them.”

She nods, and he moves his hand into her hair, smoothing it down and twirling it between his fingers. “But I’m right here. And we may not be soulmates, but I sure do like you, and that’s gotta count for something, right?”

She giggles and he presses his lips to her head. “There we go, Evans.”

LIly finally lifts her head, only to see the librarian barreling at them. James grimaces.

“Yeah, I was waiting for that to happen.” He grabs her hand, and they rush out of the library, as if they’re spies, and not teenagers escaping detention.

* * *

 

“Do I have to get up?” Lily opens her eyes and looks at James. They’re sprawled out across the grass, half napping, half watching Remus and Sirius fishing Peter out of the lake.

“Nah.”

“Good, we’ll just stay here forever then.”

“Perfect,” James mutters, trailing off on the last syllable, his eyes closing again. Lily kicks him in the leg.

“Don’t fall alseep. You’ve got stuff to do.”

“Like what?” His glasses are cocked and falling off his face, his hair flopped over his eyes, and Lily wants to kiss him, but she restrains herself. There has to be some limit on PDA, after all.

“Look at me,” Lily says, so earnestly that James chuckles, but he turns away from her.

“I look at you far too much already, Evans. I’ve got to have you memorized by now.”

“I might as well leave then, if you’ve got no use for me.” Lily says, giggling.

“Ow! Evans, did you slap me?”

“No, I’m over here.” Lily narrows her eyes. “It was probably just a bug. So weak a bug bite is like a slap to your frail, precious skin.”

“I hate you,” James says, rolling over and finally opening his eyes. “It’s a good thing you’re so pretty—”

He breaks off with a smile, and gently nudges Lily as she swats an invisible bug off her arm.

“Nevermind, they’re bad out here. My arm is stinging too.”  
“It’s not bugs, Lils. Look at your wrist.”

Lily slaps him. “What are you on, Potter?” Then she looks at her wrist.

The words she’s looked at for so long are gone.

Then, several things happen at once. Lily leaps on top of James, their kisse salty as her tears meet her lips.

They break apart. Lily lays on James’ stomach, synching up with his soft breathing, his hand running up and down her back.

“Do you mean to tell me,” she whispers, like a secret between them, “that I spent a good seventeen years—seventeen— worrying that I would be abused, unloved, hated, and it was you and your terrible sense of humor along?”

He wipes a tear from her cheek. “Yep.”

Lily buries her face into his chest. “What did your wrist say?”

James smiles, and as soon as Lily remembers what she said before he said she had slapped him, she knows.

“James?”

“Yep?”

“Did your wrist say ‘I might as well leave then, if you’ve got no use for me.’?”

“Yep.”

“So that means we both thought our soulmates were going to hate us, and it turned out to be awful sarcasm?”

“Yep.”

“Does that mean we’re soulmates?”

“Yep.”

“Are you going to say anything other than ‘yep’?”

“Yep,” he says, pulling her in for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat with me on Tumblr, I'm @lilyevcans.


End file.
